Help wanted

It seems the Florida plan is not working out too well, in that we’ve been here for 5 months, and in all that time the only employment action either us has had was a three-week temp assignment for D.

So it’s back to the hunt. We’re specifically targeting a move to the DC area or back to NY.

If you – or anyone you know – might be aware of a job opening for an IT guy (specializing in web design, network admin and social media marketing) in either of those places, please let me know.

At this point, I’m not too proud to beg.

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Coincidence? You Be The Judge

For those of you as yet unaware of the situation, I have recently joined the ranks of the unemployed.

Along with the job, of course, goes the house we were gearing up to close on. Hard to pay a mortgage without an income.

I – and many others – have noted that it’s a very big ‘coincidence’ for this to happen JUST as we were about to tie ourselves down for a great many years. Better now than a couple of weeks AFTER we closed on the house and moved in.

We are doing our best to treat this as an opportunity rather than a loss. Obviously there is sadness (mostly regarding the house), and there is stress (mostly regarding the lack of income and health insurance), but we are looking forward and taking this chance to see what is out there. The money we had saved to cover a down payment and closing costs is mercifully still in the bank, and as such the situation is not dire.

It is almost certain at this point that we will be leaving Rochester, likely going quite a long way. California and Florida are both possibilities, and we are also thinking (to varying degrees) about the DC area, Oregon and North Carolina.

So yeah. Haven’t blogged much, and that’s why, but I wanted to make sure folks knew what was up.

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Relief, and sorrow

I am still employed.

Not entirely sure why, at this point; let’s look at the reasons I had to be hopeful.

The 2008 numbers are up The person who crunched the numbers is gone.

My manager wasn’t called upon to axe people My manager is also gone.

But the axe is now done swinging, and it bit deep throughout our department. Between today’s layoffs and the voluntary separation offer that went out at the tail end of last year, we’ve lost 10 people out of 40-45.

I’ve heard that other parts of the company are getting hit harder.

And the PA just called for medical emergency response team to the area where they’re offering the next-step career counseling – so either someone just had a breakdown, or someone went postal. Probably the former, but the latter is not completely without precedent.

This has been a brutal day, during which I have seen far too many hard-working and dedicated people, many of them friends, join the ranks of the unemployed.

Those of us who are left have a meeting in a little over an hour, during which we will presumably discuss how on earth we’re all going to structure our work from here on out. It probably won’t be pretty.

But I will be here for it, and for that I am very grateful.

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It’s official.

Just got a very welcome email, which began as follows:

Oliver, Congratulations and welcome to the Xerox family. I am pleased to confirm your start date of Tuesday, September 02, 2008.

So yeah, w00t, I can has job, and any other overused meme-age you care to put here. 🙂

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